ISCTE-IUL specialists on gender identity, who were heard in parliament last January. Carla Moleiro (researcher and director at CIS-IUL) and Sandra Saleiro (researcher at CIES-IUL) converged in defending the individual freedom of young people from the age of 16.

Carla Moleiro defended, in the news published during the parliamentary discussion, that it would be ‘advantageous to allow access to legal recognition of gender identity before the age of 18.' This change allows those over 16 years to change their gender and proper name in the civil registry, upon request and without the need for a medical report. And this is an 'important milestone in the process of acquiring rights of persons with minority gender identities in Portugal', as Sandra Saleiro, a researcher at CIES-IUL, said in the same news item.

With the approval of the law, young people between the ages of 16 and 18 need only the authorization of legal representatives.

As Carla Moleiro argued, the new law ensures that medical procedures, in situations which do not endanger the life or health of infants or children, are not permitted and take place only after their decision in terms of their gender identity.' And the law passed on the 13th prohibits surgical or pharmacological interventions that involve changes in the body or sexual characteristics of intersex infants and children," except in situations of proven health risk.”